title: Auditory evoked response to gaps in noise: older adults.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to describe the auditory evoked response to silent gaps for a group of older adults using stimulus conditions identical to those used in psychophysical studies of gap detection.
  
  
  METHODS
  The P1-N1-P2 response to the onsets of stimuli (markers) defining a silent gap for within-channel (spectrally identical markers) and across-channel (spectrally different markers) conditions was examined using four perceptually-equated gap durations.
  
  
  METHODS
  A group of 24 older adults (mean age = 63 years) with normal hearing or minimal hearing loss participated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Older adults exhibited neural activation patterns that were qualitatively different and more frontally oriented than those observed in a previous study (Lister et al., 2007) of younger listeners. Older adults showed longer P2 latencies and larger P1 amplitudes than younger adults, suggesting relatively slower neural travel time and altered auditory inhibition/arousal by irrelevant stimuli.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Older adults appeared to recruit later-occurring T-complex-like generators for gap processing, compared to earlier-occurring T-complex-like generators by the younger group. Early and continued processing of channel cues with later processing of gap cues may represent the inefficiency of the aging auditory system and may contribute to poor speech understanding in noisy, real-world listening environments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA. jlister@usf.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lister
authors.forename: Nathan D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Maxfield
authors.forename: Gabriel J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Pitt
authors.forename: Victoria B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D003463:Cues; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D013997:Time Factors